Aloha! A trip of a lifetime...

ccampbell57

ccampbell57

Premium Member
Well, the dream vacation is finally over and I am back to the day to day drag of the real world. I would especially like to thank Mr. Rob "Da Kine" Lower for everything he did while I was in Hawaii. Rob you da man!!

I just got back from 9 days in paradise. I take a yearly trip to Hawaii with the family but have not been to Oahu in many years for more than a day and this year decided to stay on the east side of the island at the Kahala Resort. Well to make a long story short, this side of the island is absolutely gorgeous! Very low traffic and lots of clear calm water. It has now moved up to the top 5 places I will visit over and over again when I come back to the islands.

Prior to landing at Honolulu I had arranged to meet with Rob, owner of Christmas Island Divers. I orgininally wanted to just pop by his house to see the Bandit angels that he had available as well as any crosshatch triggers (for my big tank) and just do an overall QA of his work :) Plus I (much like everyone on this board) am a complete and total Saltwater Fish Addict.

Anyway, I landed on the tarmack and received an email from Rob to call him when I got in. So as instructed I called him. The next conversation will forever change my outlook on life in general. Not only did Rob ask me to come by and see his fish, he invited me to join him the next morning on the boat with him to go catch Bandit angels and Hawaiian dragons as well as his other variety of fish. At the end of the conversation he offered to take me into the water with him and watch him catch. I have not been scuba diving in 20 years, but did not flinch at the chance to take a "short dive" to experience this first hand.

Next morning at 6:30am up drives Rob in his Ford pickup with a missng back window where his air pumps are run for keeping his daily catch alive on the way home, a bed full of full oxygen tanks, multiple yellow bucks for catch, and a nets, etc. Rob assured my wife that I would not be diving (LIE!!) and we would be back later in the day.
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Driving down the H1 I felt like a little kid again. I was jittery and full of curiousity about this new world I was about to embark upon. After a quick stop to Starbucks so Rob could get his tripple shot of expresso (an actual shot) and no food because it gives him heartburn when he dives...LOL.

So we get to the boat dock and up pulls Walter (the captian of the boat, a 78 yr old local) and his 24' beauty.
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Continued...
 
We met with Rob's diving partner, Andy, prior to pushing off and headed out to sea. I have to tell you that the scenery was absolutely unreal. We had clear skies and gentle seas. It seemed like this would be the day I would talk about for years to come. I asked Rob where exactly we were going and he replied "going to get Bandit angels..." With that he and Andy prepared for their day of "work". What better job can you have then being able to go out in the most beautiful ocean in the world, work in nature, on your own clock, and basically it is all primitive from there...what you catch is what you make. For us guys that work behind a computer in a cube all day long, yearn for this and I got to experience it.

Here are some pictures of Rob (with a net fence in his suit...not his belly :), Andy, and el capitan, Walter.
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For good luck, Rob told me to throw the anchor for the first dive of the day. I threw it and off Rob and Andy went on the shorter dive. Walter fished as time passed and I sat out and wondered around the boat looking at all the surroundings. The water was so clear. I saw hundreds of Melycthys Niger triggers and a bunch of yellow tangs and butterflys around the boat. Fourty minutes later, Andy came up and emptied his bucket and caught some cleaner shrimp, deep cave shrimp, a file fish, and some other general fish. Fifteen mintutes later Rob comes up and empties his bucket. A handfull of potters wrasse, 4 female flame wrasse, and a ton of cleaner shrimp. No bandit angels.

We pull anchor and move to the next deeper spot and then drop anchor. Andy and Rob dive in and go to work. This time Andy came back up with a bunch of nice wrasse, a blueline butterfly, and a bunch of potters wrasse and another type of wrasse. Rob came up next and emptied out a TON. His bucket contained, eight 1" yellow tangs, 4 potters angels, a couple more female flame wrasse, 2 red coris wrasse, 4 potters wrasse, a cool looking frogfish (.5" yellow), and a turkey fish (lionfish).

Still, no bandits

Continued...
 
So finally on the last dive of the day, Rob said he wanted to take me in for a dive, so he wanted to move into 40ft water. Well, he thought better since I was the good luck and decided to go out WAAAAAAY deeper. He set me up with a tank and all of the necessary gear and I was refreshed on all the hand signals and other necessities when you are far enough down to have to decompress. Right before we hit the water, I told Rob that I was the Haole Green (pronounced how-lee...meaning whiteboy or mainlander to the locals and green for the money Rob would make). He laughed and I put my mask on and put the regulator in my mouth and we were off. I followed him down the anchor line and we found ourselves at the bottom of the ocean. WAAAAAY down. Farther than I had ever been before by a long shot.

When I got down there, the water was clear and the fish were everywhere. Just hanging out on the reef were 3 dozen bluethroat triggers all in pairs, a bunch of huge pinktail triggers, 18-20" orange shoulder tangs as well as HUGE dussimer tangs.

I followed Rob and I felt like I was in King Triton's LFS! I wanted to bag up all the fish and put them in the boat. I saw a female crosshatch hiding, but Rob missed her. He was on a mission. I watched him throw up a fence around a school of 100+ bicolor anthias, but there were too many cracks for them to get through the bottom and he called it quits. After watching him catch a ton of fish including a pair of bluethroats and some potters angels, I headed back to the surface as my tank was now in the red.

I got to the surface and on the boat and sat around in a daze for about 20 minutes just thinking about what I just saw. Andy came up with two 5" pairs of bluethroat triggers and a plethora of other fish, Rob came flying out of the water. He told me "you are Haole green! I caught your Bandit angel, a yellow mouth moray, and a sphex lionfish". I threw him an additional tank and he went down to needle the bandit to get the air out of him.

When he came up, I peered in the catch bucket and there he was. A beautiful 3" white, grey, and black striped bandit angel. I immediately said "SOLD!!!" What a better trophy to have then a bandit angel caught on the trip of a lifetime.

Here is a picture of the bandit as Rob came out of the water:
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and in the bucket
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WOW!!!! What a story, and even better what a way to get a Bandit!

I'm super jealous of your dive, as I LOVE diving and have never had the opportunity to dive Hawaii.....YET!

Lookin' forward to the rest of your story, but what you've said already (and with the pics) has me in a nice daydream about paradise!
 
WHat a great story, but thanks so much for taking the time to share it. I, like everyone else, can't wait for the rest of the story..
 
Super cool story and experience for you :D Congratulations. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story.
 
Truely an awsome trip, and the trophy to go with it. For ten minutes now I was in paradise also. thanks for sharing. Now I'll be back checking for the rest of the story every hour. LOL
 
Wow. February can't come fast enough!!!!!! I have a 2-3 week trip of my own. The wife will only be there for a week at the most. That leaves me 2 weeks of constant diving, fishing, and most importantly learning!!!!! Thankfully I don't work in a cubicle anymore and work outside in beautiful landscapes, but nothing in comparision to that place. I have never been there. On a side note I feel really bad for those hard working families in Hawaii that are getting screwed because over speculation of oil and other goods. Thats a whole other discussion. Lets concentrate on how happy and excited to see a fish freak like me get the experience of a lifetime. Congrats Campbell and keep the pics story coming!!!!! So did you ever see any Dragon Morays?? As you know i have been looking for a small one for a while. From those who i have spoke to, they have not seen any Dragons lately. I did find a small Japanese Dragon and should hopefully be here in the middle of July. Congrats again Campbell. Tim
 
Hey Tim! Thanks. It was definitely a great time and I will be doing it everytime I go out to Hawaii now.

I didnt see any dragons at all. According to Rob there are a few of them, but they are hard to come by. I guess that there are a couple places in Oahu where they are "common", but there have been little available lately.
 
Awesome thread Chris, anxious to hear the rest...Now I want to bring home a nice souvenir that can swim when I go to Maui in 2 weeks:mad:
 
Part 2

Part 2

Well, once Rob brought up the catch bucket with the Bandit and the other fish I saw him reach down for another bucket. Again he said that I was lucky and handed me another yellow catch bucket. It was really heavy and I immediately thought he caught a Hawaiian Dragon. He said, "No dragon, but I caught the second rarest eel in Hawaii, a yellow mouth Moray." Excited, I looked in the bucket, and there wrapped up was a huge 30+" eel with a bright yellow mouth. He had the head of an undulated eel and the waiste and tail of a dragon! Rob said that the eel was just a good as the dragon due to the fact that dragons are found all around the world, but this particular deep water eel is found only in Hawaii and makes it VERY valuable.

What Rob forgot to tell me was that this guy's bite is poisonous. If I had known that I would have dropped the bucket. Well, we had to get the eel out of the bucket so Rob handed me the net and he opened the cage on the catch bucket and poured the eel in the net, needless to say this guy did NOT fit in the net and the moment he hit the net he started thrashing. I freaked and tried to calm him down and in the process DROPPED THE EEL IN THE BUCKET WITH THE BANDIT AND THE REST OF ROBERT'S CATCH OF THE DAY!!!!!! He started to yell and Andy started to yell and it was likea bunch of kids playing hot potato with a poisonous 30+" eel. Well as it turns out, I was the only one that was scared. Rob and Andy were just trying to keep the eel from leaping out the back of the boat back into the water. We finally got the eel back into the bucket and into some water and all was good.

Rob then had time to catch his breath and tell us the story of his last catch of the day. He started by re-stating that I was good luck and said that the second that I motioned to him that I was going to the surface he turned around and saw the lonely Bandit angel. He said he chased it into the rocks and then netted it without any harm. On his way back to the ledge he noticed a Sphex lionfish and placed him in the other bucket. For those of you that dont know, the Sphex lion is the only native to the Hawaiian islands and is worth big money in the local market. It is red and white and looks like a russells lion mix with a radiata.

So as he was coming back with the lionfish and the bandit he saw a nice ledge and thought...maybe he could find the trio and a dragon would be there. He headed over and didnt see a dragon, but saw the eel's yellow mouth sticking out of the rock and went for it. Knowing it was poisonous he tried to poke it out and net it, but it was way too big for the net. Over half of it was sticking out of the net. Using instincts, he grabbed the waist of this beast to get him in and it turned to bite him! He said it almost got him and tried to go back into the reef. Rob grabbed its tail as it was heading into the hole and finally put it into the bucket. So this was a true treat when he got this guy in the bucket.

We packed up and headed for the dock with full buckets and I had a grin from ear to ear just staring at my new addition. We docked the boat got it cleaned and headed to the wholesalers so that I could watch the entire process for local fisherman. It was very interesting to see the whole process and how it works. It is also very interesting how much we love the fish and would be willing to pay anything and all we want to do is showcase these monster fish, and all the Hawaiians want to do is eat the fish!!! In this hobby I often forget our passions are others livelyhoods. What is worth gold to us (litterally) may be the difference in feeding their family.

So after the trip to sell the days catch, we headed to Rob's house and it was evident which house his was right away. He had eight 15 gallon tubs outside each with airhoses running to them with airstones, two huge containers with protien skimmers on them and his house was lined with 30-50g glass tanks outside.

Rob said, there are the bandits. I couldnt for the life of me believe that someone would leave 8 EXPENSIVE fish just chilling outside with no supervision. To me it is like leaving 8 open sportscars in the middle of downtown. He started to laugh and shrugged it off.
Here is a host of pictures of the fish outside his house:
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Continued
 
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